Friday, May 12, 2017

A Plant That Can Eat Rats...!

Now I know this sounds like a made-up tale, but it's true...I kid you not!

The length's that all living things will go to in order to get the food needed to survive is amazing. All living things, including plants. Want proof? Consider the Tropical Pitcher Plant.

Tropical Pitcher Plant

The carnivorous tropical pitcher plant is less known than its infamous relative, the Venus flytrap. Its flowers are a pitcher shape, coated on the inside with extremely slippery wax walls and sweet-smelling nectar at the bottom, all topped off by a lid. There are two different variations of the pitcher plant: the highland and the lowland. They both occur in the tropics in places with constantly humid air. The highland species is much more common and has a more tubelike shape compared to the lowland version, which has a wider, more typical flower shape at the top of its pitcher.The pitcher plant is best-known for capturing small insects and bugs, which smell the nectar and unwittingly climb in looking for a sweet treat. However, the liquid at the bottom contains digestive proteins which will immediately get to work, while the trapped animal tries tirelessly to crawl up the slimy walls. Although it is common to find small insects or bugs in these traps, tropical pitchers are the only plants known to have devoured entire rats! They can grow to a large enough size that even animals as large and clever as rats have become prey.

I wonder if they work on mosquitos? I figure if a plant is bad-ass enough to eat a rat, then it should be able to handle Texas mosquitos, right? How's that for a Freaky Friday topic?

Coffee out on the patio again this morning. It's only supposed to get to 85 today.

I had never heard of this until my granddaughters studied it in school. They saw a video and studied about it and they are only in THIRD grade! The problem I see with a mosquito eating plant is that since Texas mosquitos are the size of rats one mosquito would fill the plant up! Oh well, one could line the patio borders with this plant, right? Still this is a little scary to me. Would it bite me if I was trying to water it?

About Me

I recently retired after serving my time working for other people. The one Truth I can attest to is that I don't like crowds. Not a good thing for someone living in a large city! So I am planning to move back to the country. Back to a place where I can sit on the front porch without worrying about getting mugged or shot at! Where the sounds of breeze in the trees and local wildlife replace the sounds of city strife. Where the light of the stars at night replace the streetlamps and neon. Most of all, I am going someplace where I can throw a rock and not hit my neighbor's house.